bomberbaz

Not sure if you understand my original post but i was not referring to the old/new starsharp masks but to the starsharp mask and the william optics masks. I have added a link to the OP. steve

Hello all. I am looking to get a Bahtinov mast and now FLO's website has the standard Starsharp version and the new william optics version. The WO version claims to offer a much brighter spike image (3x as much) that lends itself to easier focusing. "However", it's quite a bit more expensive than the standard black acrylic version, almost 3 times as much. On the face of it, it does sound very good. Has anyone tried both versions and is it worth the extra? This is the new William Optics version https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bahtinov-focus-masks/william-optics-bahtinov-mask-for-dew-shield-diameter-105mm-to-148mm.html I have been caught out before with the buy cheap and buy twice thing, so eager to avoid this again. TIA Steve

Hello all, not sure if this is the right place for the question but here goes. I have a 130 P-DS and wanted to fit a SW auto focuser to it but there are two problems. 1/ According to FLO website the SW doesn't fit my OTA 2/ I don't want it permanently attached to the focuser and was looking at the pulley adaptation which i believe can be easily connected/dis-connected. Has anyone got this set up on a newt and if so, some pictures and guidance would be very much appreciated. TIA all Regards Steve

Being as your using it to split doubles i would have thought the fov has less bearing on your choice than price.

I have Not used the Vixen SLV but I believe they are amongst the best in the £100 bracket, a little higher in price up you get the delites which again are well reported upon but there is a lot to be said for pushing the budget that little further as per @John suggestion and going for the nagler zoom at 3-6. That's 4 eyepieces in one and I personally use a zoom in my star splitter scope due to the versatility it offers in the main. And lets be honest, you can never really go wrong with a TV eyepiece.

Jut tried to do the above, the spring screw with the little nut has a sheared head, I applied next to zero pressure and it went. I am going to ask a friend to have a look for me. I am not very good with things like this at all.

Hello all. I have been using a Gti Wifi mount in EQ mode to do some simple imaging or EEVA and thus far it has served me well. However now the mount has a little freeplay in the AZ axis (RA in EQ mode), when I say a little I would say its over 1 degree of extra movement. The problem this causes is accuracy has gone to pieces I am pretty sure it is out of warranty so I either fix it or I will have to look at an alternative mount. So has anyone had one to bits and can tell me how to tighten up the AZ axis please because as it is it is next to useless. Cheers Steve

Baz, First off the first step is designed to get the secondary perfectly perfectly collimated (orientated) to the drawtube, once done it shouldn't need doing again. Also you need to block off the primary mirror completely to do the first step. For the second and third step re collimating the secondary to the primary and then the primary to the secondary/drawtube you still use the concenter. You can check it after with your cheshire but if you do it correctly with the conceter it should be spot on.

They are not heavy so always worth asking.

Well I am still considering selling the laser but find myself holding back because I can still use said laser at night. However the concenter really is simplicity itself and still worth the money to me. If you wanted to try it out I am sure we could arrange something!

I have a AZ GTI Wifi mount and love it. If you think you will do mainly planetary, star clusters/double stars, the moon with a view that you might go to more difficult objects later, then the 127 skymax is perfect. However if your going to want to view a full range of objects including galaxies and nebula along with the aforementioned, then maybe the same mount with a shorter F ratio newtonion will serve you better. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi/sky-watcher-explorer-130ps-az-gti.html As for accuracy, well my own findings are that it is excellent as long as set up correctly. It's a subjective thing. Personally I love technology.

You could buy a pushto or DSC (digital setting circles) to a normal dob. Pushto and dsc very similar. tell the hand set where you want to be and it will guide you there. Very accurate, Quicker than goto and also means you do learn the sky as you go along.

I have seen it rob, quite impressive although first time I saw it I was like, wow !!

It was quite breezy last night but it seemed quite steady, the two pictures above were made from stacks of 50 to 500 so it can't be that bad. One thing worth pointing out is the tripod is now the 1.75 steel legged version and not the fairly basic one it came with. Also the mount is on a wedge and is flashed to EQ mode

Hello all. Brief report below of the first light with new OTA and accompnying pictures I received my long waited for 130 P_DS and decided to ive it a quick whirl out. However biggest problem was the thin but plenty of murky cloud in the sky although there was also quite a bit of smoke from fireworks blowing through. A couple of pictures below of mars through the cloud. Not very good I know but I ws fighting with the exposure levels due to the murky cloud which was constantly changing in density. Anyway, the main thing I wanted to try was the new PD-S OTA out using a ASI 224MC & meade 2x barlow. All stuck onto a SW GTI Wifi mount. Given the conditions I am pleased with the above results but more over I love the P-DS. It really is a cracker for the cost and looks and feels like it should cost a lot more than it does.

Hello Peter. A little more detail on what exactly you are hoping to achieve would be helpful in giving you helpful advice. However even without this I would suggest that a cheapo barlow is not the way to go. I owned and quickly disposed of a cheapo one once, the lens elements actually rattled in the housing. That's not going to help at all. I now have a decent meade short barlow and also a tele extender from explore scientific. Both are under a £100 and perform well depending on intended use.

I would basically concur with all the advice above. Telrad or rigel finders used in conjunction with the provided finder scope works very well. BTW @JohnI like your finder setup, looks like you can operate the two effectively with minimal head / body movement. Regarding your eyepieces dewing up. Have you been putting the eyepieces into the rack on the dob base, if so don't bother. When not in use either put into your pocket to keep it warm, making sure there is nothing else in there (eg car keys) that could scratch the lens or buy a dedicated case to use for your eyepieces where they can be left when not in use.

I had to recollimate my laser recently, it is a fiddly job and best done with a lathe

As long as it is correctly collimated itself and isn't sloppy in the focuser draw tube then I would have thought it should be fine. Happy to be corrected. I can't find the one you mention available on amazon but FLO sell a basic but perfecftly suitable option. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/astro-essentials-cheshire-collimating-eyepiece.html

Yeah was nearly a complete waste of time tonight but I did actually get something out of it in the end. It started with me packing the new dob into car to access a darker sky for further evaluation of the capabilities of it. Prior to this I checked BBC weather, clear outside and Ventusky. All gave me a similar result of cloud early on clearing to give me a couple of good hours of good clear sky, hmm think the cloud machine got switched on somewhere because it was challenging all night. So what happened is I found myself fighting said cloud for the 2 hours I stuck out and all I actually managed was a few decent views of mars and 1 of the ring. Back to getting something out of the night. My dob is fitted with a DSC and I wanted to test this out a little more and was the main aim of the night. Last time I used it I wasn't overly impressed with the accuracy and my only thought was the dob base wasn't level so I built a dob levelling base for it. See here DLP It seemed to help a very lot. I tested it on whatever stars i could get, mainly around mars / along pisces and Lyra. Basically these two were easy to see reference points through the murk. Everything I tracked too had an accuracy of around 0.5 degree or less, very pleased and I am slowly falling in love with skysafari.

Don't forget to add ink black skies to the equation!

yeah fiddly I agree peter but once it's bolted down you shouldn't have a lot of movement so recollimation will be infrequent you would hope!

It was only quick session, off out to a darker place tomorrow to do a little more all being well. However inline with other reports on here Mars is looking lovely and contrasty, I think my magnification was circa x190 with the binoviewers plugged into 127 Mak. I didn't manage the polar icecap because although there was good contrast with the pink and bluey grey areas easily identifiable and well separated, the skies are not settled enough to pick out the smaller icecap yet at 9.15 pm and so it was a little mushy at the edges. Had a quick 10 minutes at the moon as well, the terminator looked super sharp on the upper limb with Atlas and Hercules providing a cracking shadow highlighting the walls nicely. So this was a quick session but if the skies are settled tomorrow evening I intend having a much longer session under darker skies for a little more of an in depth session. clear skies all. Steve

good effort that, welldone